Preserving the heavenly sound of Stradivarius violins - CNN.com Preserving the heavenly sound of Stradivarius violins From Lianne Turner, CNN Virtuoso violinists choose Stradivarius violins for their heavenly sound Strad stringed instruments made in Italy in 17th century by mysterious Antonio Stradivari Made with Renaissance technology, some musicians say their quality is unequalled today Strad violins can sell for millions, but are priceless to their players Cremona, Italy (CNN) -- For virtuoso violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, only one violin can truly give voice to her prodigious talents -- her Stradivarius. And she likens playing it for the first time to meeting her soul mate. "It sounded the way I (had) always been hoping," she said. "It's the oldest part of my body and my soul. The moment I am on stage, we are one, musically." Stradivarius violins -- or "Strads" -- are the instrument of choice for the world's best violinists -- but only a lucky few actually get to play one. Mutter likens hers to an irreplaceable piece of art.

Indeed, it was made by Antonio Stradivari, the greatest-ever luthier, or stringed instrument-maker, who lived from 1644 to 1737. Ann Sophie Mutter makes guest appearance Mutter's Strad was crafted in Italy and is at least 250 years old. It has been played by many musicians over the years, including Hungarian violinist Jelly D'Aranyi, for whom famed composer Maurice Ravel wrote his "Tzigane for Violin and Orchestra." So, what is it that makes a Stradivarius so very special? According to Mutter, it's a question of personal fit; for her, it's the "depths of the colors and the incredible amount of dynamic range" that means it can sing out even in a roaring orchestra, yet also complement the softest pianist. Stradivarius stringed instruments may be almost priceless to the people who play them, but they are also serious cultural commodities worthy of six figure sums at auction. Last year, a 1697 Stradivarius violin went under the hammer for a record-breaking $3.6 million.

Thought to have once been owned by Napoleon Bonaparte, it was sold to concert violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. It's the oldest part of my body and my soul. The moment I am on stage, we are one, musically --Anne-Sophie Mutter, virtuoso violinist As far as Matthew Hunter, a viola player for the Berlin Philharmonic is concerned, putting a price on a Stradivarius is like putting a price on the Sistine Chapel. "This was made with Renaissance technology," he said of the Strad viola that he plays on loan as director of string ensemble, the Philharmonic Stradivari Soloists. "It was made with hands, wood and metal tools, (and) up to this day nothing has equaled it in quality or beauty." Not much is known about the man whose talents brought these iconic instruments to life. It is thought that Stradivari was born in 1644 in Cremona, northern Italy, and was mentored by violin-maker Nicolo Amati.

His instruments, which also include violas and cellos, would be inscribed with the Latin version of his name: "Stradivarius." "No other violin maker has quite the same mystique as Antonio Stradivari," luthier and restorer Bruce Carlson said. "He was prolific, that's for sure," said Carlson, who studied violin-making in Cremona, where Stradivari lived and worked. We have the feeling when we're on tour with these instruments that the owners are more concerned about their instruments (than their) own personal safety --Matthew Hunter, viola player, Berlin Philharmonic RELATED TOPICS "He had very clear ideas of what he was doing, I think. He'd experiment throughout his whole life -- you see little minute changes in his instruments as the years (went) by," Carlson continued. And as with any highly sophisticated piece of equipment, Strads need to be kept finely tuned. At the same time every day, in a chapel-turned-museum in Cremona, a musician named Andrea Mosconi plays a selection of fine violins, including a 1715 Stradivarius, in order to keep their unique sound alive.

He says that if they aren't carefully looked after, including being played every day, the wood becomes stiff and unresponsive and the instruments will lose their rich sound. Indeed, many of the musicians lucky enough to own or play a Strad consider themselves merely the custodians of these precious instruments. "I feel a great responsibility to pass it on in a perfect condition to the next generation," said Mutter. It may be daunting at first, but, says Hunter, musicians get used to it. "Now I'm able to get past the idea of doing something really stupid and dropping it or throwing it over my shoulder, or in some way ruining it," he said. "We have the feeling when we're on tour with these instruments that the owners are more concerned about their instruments and their safety than our own personal safety," he continued. It's all worth it, though, and if the musician trusts their Strad, it can elevate their music. "There's no point in really forcing the instrument. It can do it all," Hunter said.

Share this on: Encores: VIVALDI Presto from Concerto in G Minor for Violin and Orchestra, RV 315, "L'estate" ("Summer") BACH "Air on the G String" (from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068) Event Duration The printed program will last approximately two and one-half hours, including one 20-minute intermission. Bios Mutter Virtuosi The Mutter Virtuosi is a string orchestra made up of young scholars and professional string players who are alumni of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, a foundation for the development of global support for young, talented string soloists founded in Munich in 1997. Ms. Mutter has frequently performed concerts with the foundation's scholarship students to introduce them to the life of a professional musician and to a broad audience. Since 2011, she has expanded that activity with the formation of the Mutter Virtuosi for touring projects.

The first Mutter Virtuosi European tour in the spring of 2011 included performances in Vienna, Lucerne, Baden-Baden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Essen, Hannover, Friedrichshafen, and Wehr. The program included Mendelssohn's Octet, Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, and a newly commissioned Duo Concertante for Violin and Bass by Krzysztof Penderecki, performed by Ms. Mutter and the first Aida Stucki Award winner, bassist Roman Patkoló. Ms. Mutter feels strongly that her scholars and young professionals must experience traditional and new music, as well as perform in charity concerts for humanitarian causes: "I find it important that our young musicians are aware of their social responsibility as artists," she says. "Music is a gift to all, an opportunity of joint experience irrespective of origin, of doing something meaningful and placing yourself in the service of society as a musician." A June 2013 Asian tour included the same Mendelssohn and Vivaldi works, as well as the world premiere of a new work of Sebastian Currier-Ringtone Variations for Violin and Bass performed by Ms. Mutter and Mr.

Patkoló. Future tours will include performances in 2015 at summer festivals across Europe, a German tour in April 2016, and performances in Asia in October 2016 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Ms. Mutter's Japanese debut. Anne-Sophie Mutter Anne-Sophie Mutter has been recognized as one of the world's greatest violinists for more than 35 years. A four-time GrammyAward winner, Ms. Mutter has been a champion of contemporary music throughout her career, and her current tally of world premiere performances includes 22 compositions. She has had works composed for her by composers who include Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, and Wolfgang Rihm. In the 2014-2015 season, Ms.

Mutter curates a six-concert series at Carnegie Hall as a Perspectives artist; makes guest appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and London Symphony Orchestra; and tours with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España, New World Symphony, and Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra. In addition, she embarks on a six-city tour with the Mutter-Bronfman-Harrell Trio to Montreal, New York, Northridge (California), Santa Barbara, Costa Mesa, and Sonoma, and joins her string ensemble, the Mutter Virtuosi, on its first North American tour to Chicago, Toronto, Atlanta, Naples, Kansas City, and Washington, DC. Ms. Mutter has long used her public profile to support and promote charitable causes, notably those associated with the alleviation of medical and socialproblems. Her benefit concerts-which number 62 to date-have raised funds for ahost of organizations worldwide. Ms. Mutter's many awards and honors reflect the nature of her humanitarian work as well as the excellence of her artistry.

She received the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2008, the Legion of Honour in 2009 for services to contemporary French music, and the 2011 Erich-Fromm-Preis for the advancement of humanism through social engagement. Additional honors include the Merit Cross 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Mendelssohn and Brahms prizes, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize, and the Bavarian Order of Merit. In 2013, Ms. Mutter was inductedinto the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a Foreign Honorary Member. Anne-Sophie Mutter, Lambert Orkis, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bela Bartok, London Symphony Orchestra - Krzysztof Penderecki: Concerto for Violin & Orchestra No. 2 "Metamorphosen" (1992-95) / BÃ©la BartÃ³k: Sonata for Violin & Piano No.

2, Sz 76 (1922) - Anne-Sophie Mutter / London Symphony Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki / Lambert Orkis - Amazon.com Music By Lanny Thompson on March 15, 2000 Format: Audio CD I'm no expert on classical music (I'm basically a jazz fan), but I know what I like, as they say. Penderecki's second violin concerto--Metamorphosen--is my very favorite piece of classical music. Penderecki wrote it for, and dedicated it to, the performing violinist, Anne-Sophie Mutter. It is a piece in six movements, with a well-defined opening theme which is repeated in the final movement. Overall, the piece is intense but at once hauntingly beautiful. I would not say that you can sing along, but almost. Mutter, the violinist, writes in the liner notes that the piece ends "with a scene of burial, in which the soul triumphs over the body and soars aloft to heaven." Indeed! I had listened to Penderecki before (the Hiroshima composition), but this piece is much different.

Mutter's violin is intimate, almost fragile, in the high registers, yet insistent in the lower. The orchestra is dialogic even supportive, but not overwhelming. A remarkable composition that comes alive by means of an incredible performance. Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin virtuoso, balances roles as mother, musician and muse | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin virtuoso, balances roles as mother, musician and muse Preview February 4, 2010 3:00 PM By Andrew Druckenbrod Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Since German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter burst onto the international scene, she has lived up to expectations of a musical prodigy to become one of the prominent faces of classical music worldwide. But she is most proud of living up to her name. The mother of two teens (with the late Detlef Wunderlich, her first husband) has worked hard to balance building her career with being at home. But when she has felt the worst about being gone -- when boarding airplanes from Munich to hit the concert circuit -- she often would get a most unconventional boost in spirit.

"The funny thing is that my wedded name is Wunderlich, and sometimes on my plane ticket they cannot print out my [complete] double name, so it says Mutter-Wunder," she says with a hearty laugh. That's German for "wonder-mother," and it reminded her that she wasn't shirking her motherly duties by keeping her celebrated career cooking. "Being a musician is not a career for me. It is what I am here for. My children are the center of my life and I try to do justice to both," says Ms. Mutter. "I have always arranged my schedule as much as I could to their needs. My tours to the U.S. never last more than two weeks. Actually this year in fall I am away for three weeks, the first time since I had children that I break the two-week rule." That's good news for concert-goers. In concert, Ms. Mutter's virtuosity and deep connection to European repertoire can be a transcendent experience. And she always fits in several high-profile benefit concerts a year, including an upcoming engagement in Madrid for victims of the devastating Haitian earthquake.

"With music one can -- although on a very small scale -- shape people's lives and help," she says. "This is the social work part of my soul that desperately [tries] to help other people's lives." Funny that Ms. Mutter, 46, should mention social work, for she considers violin playing a calling. "The moment I set eyes and ears on a violin there was no other way that I wanted to spend my life," she says. "When I was 5 years old I wanted to have a violin lesson for my birthday. It just felt right from the very beginning." Pittsburgh Symphony Featuring: Manfred Honeck, conductor; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin Program: Brahms' Violin Concerto; Mahler's Symphony No. 1 When: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Where: Heinz Hall, Downtown. Tickets: Start at $20; 412-392-4900. She eventually studied with renowned teacher and player Aida Stucki, but it was famed conductor Herbert von Karajan's invitation to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic when she was only 13 that vaulted Ms. Mutter to the top echelon.

"When I auditioned for him in 1976 I was a total nobody," she says. "I had only just played one recital at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. This concert was our first collaboration." For the next 13 years, up until the conductor's death, Ms. Mutter was the violinist he turned to almost exclusively. "He was a wonderful mentor," she says. The early collaboration that perhaps best showed Ms. Mutter's profound voice was a recording for Deutsche Grammophon of Brahms' Violin Concerto. "The Brahms is one of the lucky moments in violin history, and it has a very special place in my heart. [It] was written with so much knowledge of the instrument thanks to Joachim, so much more knowledge about the instrument than the Beethoven Violin Concerto. "It also is a physical joy to play, which is not necessarily an important asset to a piece, but it is great if it is there on top of great music." The Brahms piece also connected Ms. Mutter to the Pittsburgh Symphony's music director, Manfred Honeck. "We met only once, in Verbier, when maestro James Levine couldn't come.

Maestro Honeck took the concert over in very short notice. In the first rehearsal,... I was very impressed by the in-depth understanding of the piece, by his vision of the piece, by the passion he goes with." Mr. Honeck was likewise enthralled and invited Ms. Mutter for a future concert. Soon that expanded to several tours this year of great importance to the orchestra. Ms. Mutter will play the Brahms Violin Concerto Tuesday when Mr. Honeck makes his Carnegie Hall debut with the PSO, and she then will tour with the orchestra to Europe in May, including a prominent concert at Vienna's Musikverein. "She has the Romantic singing element [that] Brahms needs," says Mr. Honeck. "She knows what she is doing with this piece." Ms. Mutter is confident the tours will succeed, and that Mr. Honeck is the right choice for the PSO. "He will be a wonderful conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony, right in line with the tremendous history of the ensemble." She knows a little bit about that history, not only because she has appeared before at Heinz Hall (in 1993, 1999 and 2004).

She married one of the orchestra's former music directors, composer and conductor Andre Previn, in 2002. That marriage lasted until 2006 and produced several works for Ms. Mutter. "We are best friends, and we adore each other," she says. "I think we are each other's greatest fans. He is the composer who is constantly writing for me, which is extremely flattering for me as a violinist but also as a human being." Lesser known than her playing of the canonical repertoire is that contemporary music is a passion for Ms. Mutter. She has premiered more than a dozen major works by the likes of Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki with new works by Sebastian Currier, Wolfgang Rihm and Mr. Previn on the way. One contemporary item you won't find Ms. Mutter supporting is the electric violin. "I have tried to play an electrified violin, and I just hate it," she says. "I was very interested. I am open-minded. But once the violin is deprived of its body, it also is deprived of its most inner private soul.

"Then you are really dependent on the guy who is mixing everything, and I am much too much of a musician to have someone fiddle around with my sound." Not when that sound has led to so much success. Related Media: The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation | ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER Promoting young musicians The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation "Music is only touching when it tells a story. And I am on the track of upcoming story tellers," says Anne-Sophie Mutter about the foundation she brought to life. Thanks to the support of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, Daniel Müller-Schott, Roman Patkoló, Sergey Khachatryan and Arabella Steinbacher have also become great "story tellers". Occasionally even at world premieres, because in addition to traditional promotion measures, the Foundation also commissions compositions for its scholarship students. And: The Mutter Virtuosi, an ensemble of former and current scholarship students under the management of its name provider and founder, went on tour for the first time in 2011.

The promotion of young musicians since 1997 Anne-Sophie Mutter herself experienced how necessary targeted support is, especially during the decisive starting years. That is why the violinist founded the "Freundeskreis der Anne-Sophie Mutter Stiftung e.V." [Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation] in 1997. The foundation of the same name with its head office in Munich could be established in 2008: the Foundation's objective is the global support of young, highly talented violin, viola, cello and contrabass soloists. "Apart from huge amounts of money being swallowed by the actual education, financing a suitable string instrument often causes big problems. In addition there are respective insurance fees, trips to the world's famous artists - meetings which are indispensable for the development of a young musician. The support of young talents signifies a challenge for all those who, like me, have a particularly heart-felt interest in the future of musical life," says Anne-Sophie Mutter. Individual support The scholarship students of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation are supported according to their individual needs - on which the benefactress spends a lot of time.

This may, for example, include tuition with Anne-Sophie Mutter or support in the selection and arrangement of a suitable teacher as well as the provision of instruments, establishing contacts with famous soloists and their master classes or the arrangement of auditions with conductors. "Instead of setting fixed and inflexible rules, I am more concerned with giving every student what he or she needs", explains Anne-Sophie Mutter, who selects the scholarship students personally. In this regard she is advised and supported by an artistic advisory board comprised of the cellist Lynn Harrell. At the moment, the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation supports seven scholarship students from the USA, Europe and Asia. Since 1997, 30 young musicians have been supported and six instruments financed from the Foundation’s capital. Commissioned works Boston, 19 April 2007: Sir André Previn conducts the world premiere of his concerto for violin, contrabass and orchestra with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall. The soloists: Anne-Sophie Mutter and Roman Patkoló.

Previn tailored the work, created by assignment of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, to suit the scholarship student Patkoló: "Deeply impressed by his skills, I have written him a virtuoso part which no audience has ever heard before", says the composer. The Previn Double Concerto forms the prelude for further composition assignments , with which the Foundation radically expands the narrow original repertoire for contrabass and thus also for the scholarship student Patkoló: The "Duo Concertante per violino e contrabbasso" by Krzysztof Penderecki was heard on 9 March 2011 in Hanover for the first time, and Anne-Sophie Mutter has given life to "Dyade" by Wolfgang Rihm for violin and contrabass together with Roman Patkoló on 3 April in New York.

As part of the second Mutter Virtuosi tour, which included performances in seven cities in Taiwan, China and South Korea in June 2013, the fourth world premiere by Roman Patkoló and Anne-Sophie Mutter followed: on June 6, they performed Sebastian Currier’s “Ringtone Variations” for the first time – another work commissioned by the Foundation. On August 26, 2015 the world premiere of Sir André Previn’s Nonet for Two String Quartets and Double Bass follows in Edinburgh. The work was commissioned by Anne-Sophie Mutter for her Virtuosi and is dedicated to the violinist. The instrumentation of this nonet gives current and former scholarship holders of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation new performance opportunities while also expanding the double bass repertoire. The Previn Nonet will be performed on ten evenings during the Mutter Virtuosi 2015 European festival tour – resulting in no less than eight national premieres. The Mutter Virtuosi During the past years, Anne-Sophie Mutter has repeatedly performed concerts together with the foundation's scholarship students - to introduce them to the life of a professional musician while simultaneously introducing them to a broad audience.

She has commenced with the project The Mutter Virtuosi in the spring of 2011: this new ensemble under the musical management of the violinist consists of current and former scholarship students of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation as well as selected other young musicians. The first tour in 2011 featured stops in eleven European cities. In 2013 the soloist ensemble appeared in Asia. In November 2014 the Mutter Virtuosi will perform in Canada and the USA – including a concert at the legendary Carnegie Hall. In the late summer of 2015, the ensemble embarks on a European festival tour, and in the spring of 2016 the ensemble appears in Barcelona, Aix-en-Provence as well as eight German cities. In October 2016 Anne-Sophie Mutter celebrates the 35th anniversary of her Japanese debut with a tour through Asia with her Virtuosi. The Aida Stucki Award The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation first presented the Aida Stucki Award in New York in April 2011.

The award, which carries a cash value of 10,000 Euros, went to the double bass player Roman Patkoló. In October 2013 the cellist Daniel Müller-Schott was honoured with the Aida Stucki Award in Munich. With this new sponsorship award, the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation honours outstanding, upcoming string soloists, who follow the strong traditional line of Aida Stucki and thus of the European tradition of playing and education. The future presentation of the Aida Stucki Award is not bound to a fixed rotation, but is decided by the Foundation. 08/2015 More Info Lambert Orkis The musical interests of Lambert Orkis encompass traditional and contemporary music performed on modern and period instruments. For more than 11 years, he toured internationally with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and for 26 years, he has appeared with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in the world's finest performance venues.

Their many recordings and DVDs for Deutsche Grammophon include The Silver Album released this year, and the complete sonatas by Mozart (Choc de l'année Award), Beethoven (Grammy Award), and Brahms. Mr. Orkis's distinguished career has included appearances with cellists Lynn Harrell, Anner Bylsma, and Daniel Müller-Schott; violinist Julian Rachlin; and violist Steven Dann. He has also performed with the Vertavo, Emerson, American, Mendelssohn, Curtis, and Manchester string quartets. As a soloist, he has made appearances with conductors who include Christoph Eschenbach, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Slatkin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Günther Herbig, Robert Kapilow, Leon Fleisher, Kenneth Slowik, and others. Mr. Orkis has premiered and recorded compositions of numerous composers, including solo works by George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and James Primosch for Bridge Records. With the National Symphony Orchestra's principal cellist David Hardy, he performed on both modern and period instruments in Beethoven's complete works for piano and cello on the Sono Luminus label. Mr.

Orkis participated as a distinguished performing artist and teacher for Australia's Musica Viva festival in 2013 and has twice served as juror for Norway's Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition and Festival. The American Fine Arts Festival and the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award competition have engaged him as adjudicator. As an honored artist for Taiwan's New Aspect International Music Festival, he performed and presented master classes in Taipei. He has appeared internationally as orchestral soloist, performs and has recorded as a member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players and the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society's Castle Trio (period instruments), and holds the positions of principal keyboard player of the National Symphony Orchestra and professor of piano at Temple University in Philadelphia. In acknowledgment of his accomplishments, Mr. Orkis was honored with the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. More Info Roman Patkoló Roman Patkoló graduated in 1997 from theHochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, where he studied under Klaus Trumpf. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Patkoló acted as professor at his alma mater. Since 2009, he has taught at the Basel Music Academy in Switzerland.

Mr. Patkoló has won various prizes, including first prize at the International J. M. Sperger Double Bass Competition, the European Culture Promotion Prize, the L. Rajter Prize, the Aida Stucki Prize, and the City of Toronto's Glenn Gould International Protégé Prize, upon the recommendation of Sir André Previn. Thanks to the initiative of Anne-Sophie Mutter, contemporary composers such Mr. Previn, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and Sebastian Currier recently composed new duets for violin and double bass. In 2007, Ms. Mutter and Mr. Patkoló premiered Mr. Previn's Double Concerto for Violin and Bass in Boston with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mr. Previn himself. The European premiere of the work with the London Symphony Orchestra was met with great critical acclaim. Between 2011 and 2013, Mr. Patkoló and Ms. Mutter premiered Rihm's and Penderecki's duets and Currier's Ringtone Variations.

New York Classical Review » Blog Archive » Mutter delivers unforgettable Sibelius with Danish National Orchestra Mutter delivers unforgettable Sibelius with Danish National Orchestra Thu Feb 12, 2015 at 12:10 pm By George Grella Anne-Sophie Mutter performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall. Photo: Tina Tahir/DG There is a substantial storehouse of music, written mostly from the late 18th through the early 20th century, that constitutes the substantial majority of symphony orchestra concerts. One reason the music is played so often is that so much of it is great, but that also tends to make symphonic concerts safe. There is a standard format—especially with visiting groups—of overture, concerto, then, after intermission, an “evening length” symphony. Safe does not automatically mean bland or boring, but the pleasure of hearing a great work played well is predictable, and while ideally there should be a broad range of interpretive possibilities, in practice variations between performances are slight.

Then there are concerts like the one Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, with the visiting Danish National Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Cristian Macelaru, appearing with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter as part of her Perspectives series this season. Together, they played one of the great warhorses, Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, and the performance was astonishing and impossibly sublime. This was Mutter’s show all the way. There are many fine soloists in classical music, and everywhere one turns there are musicians with tremendous technique. Mutter is one of them. She has unsurpassed dexterity and articulation. More than a great violinist, though, she is a great artist, a virtuoso thinker about music with enormous expressivity. Start with the opening bars: above the pianissimo tremolo in the orchestral strings, Mutter produced an eerie, glassy tone, sharp enough to draw blood. As the music opened up, so did she, rounding out her sound and filling it with light. In the opening Allegro moderato there are two short cadenzas that show off the soloist and serve as transitions, then a final, big cadenza.

Mutter played the fast runs in the second cadenza with such power, then the mournful phrase that follows with such desolation, that one could only laugh in amazement and cry with heartbreak at the same time. Sound, speed, power, character, viscera, these were all her tools. She went from mellow to harsh through the space of individual sustained notes. After her tremendous run through the third cadenza, her playing took on an inhuman amount of weight, as if the bow was a shovel, clearing earth for a grave. In the sad, wistful Adagio, she played una corda, keeping the music on the G string for as long as possible, her violin sounding like a viola. In the last, Allegro movement, she played with a disciplined freedom that had her phrases at odds with those of the orchestra, until they synchronized at key points. This was a performance that left one stunned in wonderment. Macelaru and the Danish musicians were excellent accompanists. The conductor tends towards tempos slightly slower than the norm, which seemed perfect for Mutter. The orchestra played beautifully, especially when the music was at its quietest, and overall tended towards a darker sound than one usually hears.

The low brass produced a great, warm rumble, like the pedals of an organ. As an encore, Mutter played a Bach Sarabande, which she dedicated to the orchestra’s previous music director, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who passed away last June just a week after resigning his position because of illness. The spare simplicity of her playing revealed the sincere and profound effect of his death. The rest of the concert, though not at that singular level, was well done. The orchestra opened with Valse Triste, and the combination of quiet playing, an almost funereal opening tempo, and carefully placed pizzicato phrases made the music more dolorous than triste, and so the cadential phrase that rises from the orchestral texture was unusually powerful. The main course was Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4. Here, Macelaru’s tempos were less consistent, hanging phrases in place while stretches of the Poco Allegretto were lost in stasis. The overall shape was excellent—in the first movement, the initial woodwind chorale was nicely understated, setting the stage for the same music’s grand return in the brass. The overall impact of the symphony was rousing, the sense that the music enjoyed its own power.

Orchestra and conductor dashed off the encore of Nielsen’s Maskarade Overture with the same élan. Anne-Sophie Mutter’s Perspectives Series continues 8 p.m. April 14. carnegiehall.org André Previn - Violin Concerto (“Anne-Sophie”) (2001), - Music Sales Classical Violin Concerto (“Anne-Sophie”) (2001), André Previn Violin Concerto (“Anne-Sophie”) (2001), Composer Note: The first movement is by far the most lush. The second movement starts with the cadenza, and it is the most barren. In November 1999, I called my manager from a train in Germany to wish him happy birthday, and he told me "from a train in Germany" would make a great title for a piece. It's now the third movement of the concerto, a set of variations on a German children's song I knew as a kid, "Wenn ich voglein war" ("If I were a bird, I would fly to you . . ."). Above the third movement I have put a quote from "Little Gidding" in T.S.

Eliot's "Four Quartets": "We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time." I like that – it's just about right. —André Previn Kurt Masur, conductor Reviews Melodically attractive and ravishingly scored, the concerto’s musical argument is perhaps rather discursive, but it communicates a compelling depth of expression, particularly in the slow movement. Christian Hoskins, MusicOMH.com,6/13/2015 Previn's new VIOLIN CONCERTO is proportioned into three movements. The concerto's unconventional structure and raw element of pain demand more of the listener than its accessible idiom might initially suggest. Movement I is lush, sensuous, fresh romanticism. II, an elegy, is somber, mysterious, and more sparsely scored with an elaborate solo part. III is a set of wide-ranging variations on a children's song [that] incorporates virtuosity and contrasts of mood, counterpoising nostalgia and heartrending grief. Mark L.

Lehman, American Record Guide,1/1/0001 Previn's 40-minute VIOLIN CONCERTO is a three-movement, symphonic masterwork (yes, it really is that good) opening with an unashamedly romantic Moderato of Korngold-like opulence and intensity (with a bit of Prokofiev thrown in for good measure), moving through a more introspective central Cadenza, and climaxing in a theme and variations on the German children's song "Wenn ich ein Vöglein war" ("If I were a bird"). Recorded live with the Boston Symphony, the results could hardly be more "authentic," but even allowing for the special sense of occasion and obvious rapport between the two major protagonists, there is an electrifying imperativeness about this playing that is riveting. Julian Haylock, International Record Review,1/1/0001 André Previn's VIOLIN CONCERTO is a three-dimensional self-portrait of Previn himself - lacking only the strand of jazz. The first movement brings us the Hollywood of Previn's youth, ripely romantic...

The second-movement looks out on a bleaker terrain [with] suggestions of Shostakovich and Stravinsky. The last movement is a set of variations on a German children's song Previn remembers from his childhood in Berlin. This is perhaps the most intimate and self-revelatory music Previn has yet written, with a note of sweet, sad wistfulness that seems intrinsic to his character and to his music-making. [There is] experience and sheer know-how that went into this piece. The solo calls for a complete virtuoso, but is it not about virtuosity; there is something very inward, and indrawing, about the whole work...Previn has received countless standing ovations as a performer; last night he richly earned one as a composer. Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe,1/1/0001 Previn's new VIOLIN CONCERTO pays tribute to his relationship with Anne-Sophie Mutter and looks back nostalgically through his life. The work [uses] alternating soaring lyricism and brisk rhythmic passagework, [along with] cinematic drama and sweep in its harmonic and orchestral lushness.

The second movement is abrasive and moody, with angular interjections reminiscent of Bartók's concerto and somber musings recalling Shostakovich's. Previn's concerto appears violinistic in conception and it requires both a substantial technique, which Mutter, of course, possesses and a strong lyrical bent. The engineers in this live performance have captured her within an orchestral web that they've delineated with crystal clarity. For [a] commanding performance, Mutter and Previn's creative partnership on this recording deserves a very strong recommendation. Robert Maxham, Fanfare,1/1/0001

Question: Of what orchestral instrument is Anne-Sophie Mutter a virtuoso?
Answer: VIOLIN